She ceases moving with almost shocking abruptness, all at once, an engine coming to rest, and stands in front of her teacher. She is not breathing quickly, she is not perspiring.
After a moment she says, "Well?"
The red candle continues to burn; neither the white nor black candles have come alight. "How do you feel?"
"Like something is going to happen."
"Joy? Anger?"
"No." Denice pauses. "I feel very peaceful."
Robert Dazai Yo does not look away from her. He speaks with the deliberate gravity of a man who is considering every word. "There is in what you do...a correctness of movement I have never seen before; not in students, not in myself...not in my teacher. And yet it is wrong." He is silent for a long while. "I have not often discussed the words I use with you, which are not French or English or Japanese. They are the tongue which is called shiata, or, in English, nightways." Robert's shoulders move slightly beneath the black cloth of his gi. "There has been no point to teaching you of our history, such as I know of it, while I have been uncertain that the discipline itself would take. You were--brought to me, Denice. By Orinda Gleygavass, who was the servant of my master. And I was instructed to teach you; that you would be the student some shivata never see, the one who would learn that which I could teach."
Denice Castanaveras waits motionlessly.
"There is a legend, a part of our teachings," says Robert, "that before there was shiabrè, the discipline of life bent into death, there was shia, the dance of life itself. I see in what you do, that dance." He turns away from her, kneels and snuffs the light of the blood-red candle, spreads the burning orange incense across the wood until it is extinguished. He does not look at her again. "I do not see nightways." He begins to remove the tools from the altar's surface, carefully reversing the order in which they were laid there. "I think perhaps there is only shia in you."
DateLine: Shawmac on 58-1022
So the Unification Council wants to make it illegal for AIs to own property. This is a small bill; not important; expected to pass without fuss, hopefully without notice. Unification Councilor Pena of Puerto Rico introduced it, which should tell you something to start with; Pena is about as bought-and-paid for a politician as can be found in Capitol City, which is saying something mildly impressive.
Bill 58-1022 goes by the name of "A Regulatory Procedure for Confiscating Property Owned by Artificial Intelligences." Basically what it is, is a way the Unification (specifically, the scum-sucking and relentless PKF) can confiscate any piece of property it wants, without due process, without going through the courts; the Peaceforcers file a notice with the new regulatory body created by this bill, stating--without any evidentiary requirements--that some item or real property is believed owned by an Artificial Intelligence. As the statute is written, this creates a "rebuttable presumption" of guilt on the part of the persons whose property has been confiscated. And this presumption may be damn difficult to overcome. Any of you out there want to give it a shot? The Tax Board has prevailed on similar cases--built upon "rebuttable presumption" rather than "proof beyond a reasonable doubt."
So the rebuttable presumption of guilt has been inflicted upon the victim's property--which the PKF DataWatch then proceeds to confiscate.
That's it.
That's the whole bill.
There is no provision for return of improperly confiscated property.
If this bill passes, it will, not coincidentally, be the end of The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, an anti-Unification Board generally believed to be owned by an AI.
Your representatives vote on this evil property-confiscating bill--Bill 58-1022--on Tuesday. You know what to do.
STAND UP--FIGHT BACK--SPREAD THE WORD
* * *
18.
In an auditorium a kilometer beneath the surface of Capitol City, Mohammed Vance stood in the midst of the blackness and waited for the holograph.
The image of the person who had given his name as Sedon of the Gi'Suei hovered next to him, life-size. It came from Sedon's brief imprisonment at the PKF Detention Center near Amiens.
Vance walked around the image, imprinting the man's bone structure deep in his memory. "Very good," he said at length. "Next."
The image that appeared was slightly fuzzy; two-dimensional, taken at a distance of some two hundred meters. The man was stepping from a limousine, hurrying with half a dozen known Rebs toward a parked semiballistic capsule. He was tall, with long blond hair in a pony-tail. His skin was the color of a Caucasian with a deep tan, and his eyes were bright blue.
But the bone structure had not been altered. The same high cheeks, the same long, Roman nose.
Vance said quietly, "Lights up, dim."
Three persons stood in the room with him; Alexander Moreau, Hand to the Secretary General; PKF Elite Commander Christine Mirabeau; and Terence LeFevre, the current appointed head of the Ministry of Population Control.
Vance largely ignored LeFevre; this was not a civilian affair, and if he had had his way in the matter, LeFevre would not have been invited to the briefing. It was not even a matter of the customary rivalry between the PKF and the Ministry; Vance did not trust LeFevre, did not consider him competent. If the Ministry had sent Gabrielle Laronde, the Ministry's senior non-elected official, Vance would have been little better pleased; except that, if business with the Ministry were required, Gabrielle would have conducted it in a professional manner.
LeFevre was merely a politician.
Vance turned to Alexander Moreau, one of the few persons who had been present when Sedon's bubble had been opened for whom Vance had any respect whatsoever. "What do you think, Hand Moreau?"
Moreau was young for a Hand, in his thirties, and that was due, unquestionably, to the name he had been born to; nonetheless he was modestly talented, and Vance had some hope that he might one day, after some seasoning, serve as the first French Secretary General since Tènèrat, some forty-five years prior.
Moreau shrugged. A thin, intense young man, he spoke in quick, chopped sentences that gave the impression he was answering off the top of his head. "It looks like him to me."
"Christine?"
"I never met Sedon. I've done no more than view the holos of him." Vance's superior shrugged. "If you feel it is him, I will back your judgment in the matter."
Mohammed Vance nodded. He did not even consider requesting LeFevre's opinion. "I would like to submit to the Secretary General a request to place M. Obodi on the bounty listings at CU:6,000,000."
LeFevre whistled. "That's a million more than Trent the Uncatchable lists for."
Vance did not even look at the man. "Don't call him that. He's not. Hand Moreau, I will arrange the request. I will expect it upon the Secretary General's desk within a day."
Moreau nodded. "It will be. The SecGen's a Christian, you know; he'll be in Church tomorrow. You probably won't receive a response until Monday."
"That's acceptable. We are done. Christine, may we speak privately?"
"Certainly." The two Elite headed for the door together, and might have left then had Elite cyborgs had less excellent hearing; Alexander Moreau said softly to Terence LeFevre, "I wonder how Trent's going to feel about that."
Vance stopped in mid-step. After a long moment he turned back. "Hand Moreau? I beg your pardon?"
The young Hand blinked. "Yes?"
"What did you say?"
"Ah--I wondered how Trent would feel about not being Number One."
"I thought that was what you'd said. Perhaps," said Vance after a pause, "you should concern yourself less with the feelings of enemies of the Unification, and more with the performance of your job." Vance's voice did not rise, his expression did not alter. His glittering black eyes stayed fixed upon Moreau's. "If I stood in your skin, I would be rather more concerned about the possibility of being prosecuted for dereliction of duty, than about whether one of the Unification's enemies is upset over being judged somewhat less dangerous than an
other of our enemies."
Simply from the tone of his voice, Mohammed Vance might have been discussing what he had eaten for breakfast.
Hand Moreau swayed slightly when Vance was done: Vance's political enemies had the persistent habit of ending up unfortunately, accidentally dead. "Yes, Commissionaire. I will take your advice."
Vance made a dismissive gesture and turned away again. "See you do. This briefing is closed."
They spoke together in the only place in all of Capitol City where Vance knew, for a fact, there were no listening devices; there would have been no point to it.
Inside the primary air vents which fed the Capitol City spacescraper in which the Peace Keeping Force was headquartered, standing motionless, heads together like lovers in the tornado-roar of the wind, Mohammed Vance and Christine Mirabeau whispered in one another's artificial ears.
Mirabeau said, "What is it?"
"Secretary General Eddore continues to refuse us permission to break the Johnny Rebs."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Mirabeau shook her head, just a fraction. "I don't know, Mohammed. He says he has a private investigation ongoing, which will allow him to end any threat from the Rebs."
"Do you know anything about this investigation?"
Elite Commander Mirabeau whispered, "No."
"Christine, I am not convinced it exists."
Mirabeau said slowly, "Nor I, Mohammed. Nor I."
The following Tuesday morning, four hundred million kilometers away, in the depths of the Asteroid Belt, two Security Services guards stood immediately inside the airlock door of the largest recording studio off Earth itself, laser rifles at the ready.
"Are you Trent?"
The young man floating in front of the airlock, wearing a scalesuit whose chest bore a painting of a river of blood running through a deeper red jungle, said, "Yes."
"Look into the light."
"I'm here for breakfast," Trent explained. The laser flashed through the faceplate of Trent's helmet, played over the retina of his right eye.
The guard nearer Trent, wearing a scalesuit much like Trent's except that it was stripped clean down to the metal, said, "You're Trent."
"I said I was."
The guard gestured Trent through, commenting, "Nice design."
"It's a painting I stole once."
"What's it called?"
"Je Suis Le Fleuve," said Trent, going inside. "I'm going to steal it again someday."
After Trent was gone, the two guards stood silently together.
Finally one guard said, "I hear he walked through a wall once."
The other guard simply snorted.
She greeted him as he entered her bedroom with the words, "They're voting on the AI property bill today. Looks like it's going to pass."
Trent shrugged. "It will."
Mahliya Kutura nodded, slightly distracted. "Also, you got bumped from number one on the PKF's bounty list."
"Say what?"
The young woman generally recognized as the greatest living musician in the System floated in midair, showing herself off to advantage in a pair of green shorts and a white bikini top. She was turned slightly away from Trent and about eighty degrees off his vertical. She did not pay much attention to Trent; the wisp of a new melody floated in the back of her mind, and she knew that with a little gentle encouragement she could get it out of her skull and into the synthesizer. So it was that it took a moment for Trent's response to penetrate, and she repeated, "They bumped you from number one. The most wanted fugitive in the system is the new head of the Johnny Rebs. They're offering CU:6,000,000 for his capture. They announced it this morning." She paused, auditing the article floating forty centimeters in front of her eyes. "Fellow named Obodi."
Trent stared at her. "They can't do that."
She stared back into his almost-upside down eyes. "Why not?"
"I, I, I worked for this. I've killed Peaceforcers Elite, I blew up half of Peaceforcer Heaven. I--"
"You didn't do either of those things," Mahliya said reasonably. "Garon fell, it was an accident, I've heard you say that."
"Well yes but--"
"And Commissioner Vance blew up Spacebase One after you told him it was booby-trapped, he should have listened. I've heard you say that too."
It stopped Trent for a second. "Well, the Peaceforcers say I did those things. It seems to me that if I'm getting blamed for them, I might as well get the credit for it. By Harry, this isn't fair."
"The PKF isn't noted for being fair, Trent."
"That's easy for you to say," Trent muttered. "I stole the LINK," he said abruptly. "I did that. And then I walked through a wall and ran away and embarrassed them badly."
"That's true," Kutura conceded.
"Shouldn't that count for something?" Trent demanded. "Wouldn't you think that would count?"
Kutura looked at him for a moment. Trent was the only person she knew who was as famous as she was--if in different circles; she doubted Commissioner Vance would recognize her name--and if you figured his net worth as including the bounty on his head, which she did, then he was also the only person she knew who was worth as much as she was. Which was perhaps a juvenile thing to consider, but still; her wealth seemed to matter to everyone she met these days except Trent, and she supposed that must be the reason for it.
He was her age, twenty-five; she rather liked him and was thinking about sleeping with him.
Unfortunately he occasionally exhibited terrible, terrible ego problems, almost as bad as her own. "You know," said Mahliya Kutura after a moment, "if you're going to sulk over this, I really wish you'd do it somewhere else."
Trent looked like he'd been slapped. "All right. Fine. Just fine."
"Seriously. You're ruining my breakfast, and I haven't even had it yet."
Without saying anything further Trent stalked back out; a good trick in drop.
Obviously, thought Mahliya Kutura after he was gone, couldn't think of a good exit line.
Late at night on Monday, May 18, 2076, Callia Sierran and her younger brother Lan arrived at a farm in Iowa.
The farm was a Johnny Reb stronghold. The fields around the farmhouse itself were planted with corn; rows upon rows of tall corn, stretching away toward the horizon, a sight such as Lan and Callia, raised in cities across the world, had never seen before in their lives. About a hundred meters of space had been cleared all around the farmhouse; automated items of farm equipment which neither of them could identify, large and bulky, were parked around one end of the farm.
On the downlot in front of the house were several cars.
They brought their car down on a gentle incline of hillside, two kilometers from the farmhouse, and Lan scanned the structure with imaging binoculars. "Six cars. Hot engines on four of them...the one on the left is Domino's." He passed the binoculars to his older sister.
Callia glanced through the binoculars, handed them back. "Let's head in."
The car lifted and moved forward.
They met in a large conference room several floors beneath the surface. There were eight people gathered together in the conference room, seated in a rough circle with Rebs on one side of the conference table, Claw on the other. Four bodyguards, two each from the Claw and the Rebs, stood on opposite sides of the door, watching each other.
The Reb lawyer said, "I think perhaps we should introduce ourselves before beginning."
Domino Terrencia said softly, "Feel free."
The lawyer took it as acceptance. "My name is James Ramirez. I have a degree in Unification Criminal Law. You may know of me; I've been in the Public Defender's office in New York City for the last four years. I've had occasion to serve as the criminal defense for, I think, two of your people. Instances when you didn't want to use a lawyer with known sympathies. I've done much the same for our own people over the course of the last few years. I quit that job a week ago and went full-time here." He gestured to the man sitting next to him. "This is 'Sieur Obodi. T
o my left is Christian J. Summers, and to his left is Akira Hasegawa. I don't think Mister Summers requires an introduction; 'Sieur Hasegawa is here representing Mitsubishi of Japan, the company which has maintained Mister Summers' non-biological components for the last twenty years or so." He paused. "Max Devlin wasn't able to get away. He's been made by the PKF and he's being watched too closely. We're going to pull him free in the near future; if he were available, he'd be at this table now. Tommy Boone will not be here, as I believe you were told two weeks ago." Ramirez paused again. "That covers us."
"Very well." Domino spoke rapidly, aggressively. "I am Domino Terrencia. I am the second-in-command in the Claw. You've met Callia; the young man is her brother Lan. If you don't know who--"
"My dear." The old woman sitting at Domino's side made a dismissing gesture with one hand. "I will introduce myself." The pale blue eyes fixed themselves upon the man seated across the table from her, upon 'Sieur Obodi. She spoke without blinking, without looking away; there might have been no one in the room but themselves. "My name is Nicole Eris Lovely. I am eighty-six years old and when I was forty-two I founded the Erisian Claw. I have seen seven different men lead the Johnny Rebs during the time since I founded the Claw. All seven of those brave, patriotic, ambitious men are now dead, and I am still here. That's who I am." She smiled a gentle, polite smile at the Rebs across the table from her; at Obodi. "Who the fuck are you?"
* * *
19.
Denice stood rigidly in front of Ripper's desk and, with a growing sense of despair, listened to him talk.
"I'll make this as quick as I can, because I don't like going back on a promise and I'm going to do that here. There's not a damn thing I can do for your friend Ramirez." Douglass added, gently, "I am sorry. I'm not sure beating around the bush here would be any kindness; your friend is going in front of a firing squad. Go back to your office and read the report. The Rebs and Claw had a meeting recently, top-level on both sides, apparently to determine if they're going to work together. The PKF doesn't know where it was held, but they have a list of the people who supposedly attended the meeting." Ripper paused as though he found it genuinely difficult to continue. "I'm really sorry. Ramirez's name is on it."
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